法苑珠林 5.28

5.28

The two daughters of the Lun family under the Song dynasty were natives of Zengcheng in Dongguan. They were elder and younger sisters at that time. In the ninth year of the Yuanjia reign era, the elder sister was ten years old and the younger sister was nine years old. In their remote southern village, they were simple and ignorant, knowing nothing of the sūtras and Dharma. Suddenly, on the eighth day of the second month, both vanished. After three days they returned, speaking vaguely of having seen the Buddha. On the fifteenth day of the ninth month, they vanished again, returning after ten days speaking foreign languages and reciting sūtras and Sanskrit texts. When they saw śramaṇas from the Western Regions, they could mutually converse and explain things. On the fifteenth day of the first month of the following year, they suddenly disappeared once more. Laborers in the fields said they saw them drifting directly up into the sky riding the wind. Their parents wailed in fright, sacrificing to spirits to seek blessings. After a month had passed, they returned, having shaved their heads as nuns and wearing Dharma robes, carrying their hair as they came back. They recounted that they had seen the Buddha and bhikṣuṇīs, who said: 'By past karmic conditions, you ought to be my disciples.' The Buddha raised his hand and stroked their hair, which fell away, and bestowed Dharma names upon them: the elder was named Fayuan, and the younger was named Facai. As he was sending them back, he said: 'You may build a vihāra, and I shall bestow upon you the sūtras and Dharma.' When the girls returned home, they immediately destroyed the spirit altars and erected a vihāra, fasting and chanting by night. In the evenings, there was often a five-colored light floating across the mountain ridges like lamps and torches. The girls said that thereafter their deportment was refined and elegant, their speech and demeanor upright, such that the manners of the capital could not surpass them. The regional inspector Wei Lang came to their village to welcome and make offerings to them, and upon hearing their discourse, he was deeply reverent and amazed. Thereupon, the entire mountain valley came to know and revere the Dharma. (The preceding one is from the Ming xiang ji).